César Machado and Jan Durán won the first race of the third round of the Iberian Supercars and Supercars Jarama RACE programme, held this Sunday at Circuit Ricardo Tormo. However, the #4 Speedy Motorsport Toyota GR Supra GT4 pair victory didn’t come easy.
The Portuguese driver, at the wheel of the Toyota GR Supra GT4 for Speedy Motorsport, started from pole position. Still, Jorge Rodrigues, driving the Audi R8 LMS GT4 for Veloso Motorsport, managed to snatch the lead on the run to the first corner. Meanwhile, Nerea Martí, in the BMW M4 GT4 for BMW España Motorsport, climbed from sixth on the grid to fourth, closing in on the Mercedes AMG GT4 of Team VRT, driven by Salvador Tineo.
Following a brief Safety Car period to recover the McLaren 570S GT4 from McLaren Barcelona – SMC Motorsport, driven by Álvaro Gutiérrez, the lead positions began to shift.
Jorge Rodrigues, struggling with understeer in his Audi, couldn’t hold off the advances of César Machado, who took the lead on lap five. At the same time, Nerea Martí began a comeback that thrilled her local fans, pushing her to second place after overtaking the Veloso Motorsport driver, who continued to battle with the handling of his car.
However, just as fans were waiting to see if the BMW España Motorsport driver could challenge the Speedy Motorsport Toyota, an incident between Nuno Pires in the Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4 for Racar Motorsport and Manuel Bertolín in the GT Corse-run BMW M4 GT4 triggered another Safety Car, this time to recover the stricken BMW.
This neutralisation period lasted longer than the first, and as the green flags were waved, the driver change window opened, leading to a flurry of pit lane activity.
Despite the congestion in the pit lane, Jan Durán managed to keep the Speedy Motorsport Toyota GR Supra GT4 in the lead. With a strong pace, he confidently secured victory, finishing three seconds ahead of Guillermo Aso and Filip Vava in second place
The Mercedes AMG GT4 duo from NM Racing Team had a consistent first half of the race, with Guillermo Aso keeping them in podium contention. When Filip Vava took over, he set a strong pace, overtaking Patrick Cunha’s Audi to move into second place.
The Veloso Motorsport driver, more focused on securing the win and points in the GT4 Bronze class, still finished an impressive third overall, clinching the win in his category. This allowed the Braga duo to gain crucial points over their main rivals in the title race, Alberto de Martín and Nil Montserrat, as Stepan Suslov took the chequered flag second in the Bronze class, finishing sixth overall. This pushed the NM Racing Team Mercedes AMG GT4 duo to third in the class, eleventh overall.
José de los Milagros, facing a five-second pit stop penalty due to previous results, finished fourth overall and third in GT4 Pro, sharing the BMW M4 GT4 with Nerea Martí.
Miguel Nabais and André Nabais, in their Porsche 718 Cayman GT4, bounced back from their misfortunes at Estoril, putting themselves back in contention for the GT4 Am title with a performance that saw them beat the BMW M4 GT4 from Promotion Motorsport, driven by Smörg and Javier Macias. The points leaders in this class, Keith Gatehouse and Igor Sorokin, secured third place in their NM Racing Team Mercedes AMG GT4, trying to fend off the recovering points haul of the Speedy Motorsport siblings.
Pere Marques and Mikkel Kristensen, in their Ligier JS2R from Chefo Sport, claimed the GTX division win on their Iberian Supercars debut, finishing just ahead of Rui Miritta, who once again took top honours in the Cup class.
